


It was just a joke

by givebackmylifecas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bullied Castiel, Dean is not the bully, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Jock Dean, Light Angst, M/M, Nerd Castiel, One Shot, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 00:36:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10231568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/givebackmylifecas/pseuds/givebackmylifecas
Summary: Castiel is a nerd and Dean a jock, despite this they are best friends. When Cas is at a party with some of Dean's friends, they try to convince him something awful happened.Basically Dean's friends are dicks, but Dean is a sweetheart and I worship high school Destiel.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A mild trigger warning for panic attacks and bullying. Dean isn't the one who bullies Cas, don't worry he stays a sweetheart throughout.

Cas was drunk. It wasn’t the first time he had been drunk, you weren’t best friends with Dean Winchester for 13 years without getting drunk once or twice before your 18th birthday.

Currently he was in Gordon Walker’s living room with Dean, Gordon and some of their jock friends like Brady and Victor and their girlfriends Bela and Ruby, who had brought their friend Meg. There were more people than that there, but these were the only ones Cas knew. He held a certain tentative friendship with Dean’s –should he say more athletically inclined friends – but he knew it was only because Dean had refused to give up on their friendship when he started playing football and hanging out with the cool crowd, while Cas preferred hanging out in the library or with some of the people from drama club.

So here Cas was, drunk even though he wasn’t supposed to be drinking when he was taking his anti-depressants, at a party that – according to high school hierarchy – he should never have been invited to, listening to Dean and Brady discuss the football game they had just won.

He watched hazily as Victor whispered something to Gordon, who grinned and came to sit down next to Cas, just as Dean announced that he was going to get some more to drink. One of the girls talking to Bela and Ruby, followed him, causing the other girls to burst into giggles. Cas ignored them, he was used to the female attention Dean attracted wherever he went.

“So, Cassie, I’m surprised to see you here, after what happened at the last party.”, Gordon said to him, a serious expression looking out of place on the football player’s usually grinning face. Cas frowned, he wasn’t sure what Gordon was talking about. “Well, I guess you don’t remember, you were pretty wasted.”, Gordon continues and Castiel’s frown deepens. Sure, he had been pretty drunk, and he had some gaps in his memory, but he thought he had had fun without embarrassing himself too much.

“If I were him, I’d want to forget too.”, Victor joined in from across the room.

“What are you talking about?”, Cas asked as he felt panic building inside of him. Surely Dean would have told him if he’d embarrassed himself that much?

“Oh God, he really doesn’t remember.”, Gordon said to Victor.

Victor looked honestly shocked. “Then maybe we should just leave it. Somethings are better left unsaid and forgotten.”

“Guys, what are you talking about?”, Castiel repeated, slurring slightly. The wave of panic inside him was steadily rising. He didn’t like not knowing what happened to him, and until now he had thought that he could always rely on Dean to tell him. Like when he was having his ultra-realistic dreams that branched out into hallucinations and Dean would be with him almost constantly to tell him what was real and what he had imagined.

“Should we tell him?”, Gordon asked Victor, looking concerned.

Victor shook his head. “No, if he honestly doesn’t remember what happened with Balthazar then –“

“What about Balthazar?”, Cas gasped, desperately clutching at any information provided. He remembered Balthazar from the last party, an openly gay exchange-student with whom Castiel had spent a long time talking and drinking and hugging but – wait, nothing else had happened, had it? He wouldn’t have done anything with Balthazar, would he?

Victor looked at Cas with pity in his eyes. “I really don’t think we should tell you. It’s really pretty awful, it makes me sick just thinking about it.”

“Why? What happened?”, Cas asked, absentmindedly scraping at the skin on his forearm with his fingernails- the skin that had only just healed after being scratched bloody during his last panic attack. He looked from Victor, who was still looking at him pityingly, to Gordon who was doing something on his phone, but put it away when Cas looked at him.

“Seriously man, if you don’t remember what happened, I don’t think we should tell you. It was a pretty nasty affair, it almost gave me nightmares and I wasn’t the one it happened to.”, Gordon tells him.

“I don’t think you should tell him.”, Bela chimes in, coming to sit between Gordon and Cas. “Trust me Castiel, it’s better if you don’t know.” At this point, Cas was only moments away from descending into a full-blown panic attack, he couldn’t seem to catch his breath and his hands were shaking.

“Please, just tell me.”, he begs.

“Tell you what?”, Meg asks from across the room.

“Tell him about Balthazar.”, Bela says, making an odd motion with her phone. Meg raises her eyebrows and some part of Cas’ mind notices that she turns away to look at her own phone.

He wishes Dean were there, he can usually calm Cas, help him sort through his messy mind. Right now, all Cas can picture are a variety of horrible scenarios that could have occurred while he was too drunk to notice.

“I still don’t think we should tell him.”, Victor says and begins to say something else, but Meg cuts him off.

“Tell him. Tell him everything, now, or I will.”, she says, her eyes flashing dangerously.

Gordon rolls his eyes at her and then grins at Cas. “Sorry Cassie, didn’t mean to scare you. Nothing happened with Balthazar, we were just messing with you. We even had a group chat about it.”, he says, waving his phone at Cas.

“You – what?”, Cas gasps.

“Yeah, it was just a joke.” Victor says. “Right, Dean?”

Cas turns to see Dean standing in the doorway to the living room and it’s like his world has come crashing down on him.

“I – um- I need to go.”, Cas manages to force out, before pushing past Dean and almost sprinting out of the house and down the street. He makes it to the next street over, before he has to stop because he feels like he might throw up. His head is spinning. He can’t believe that Dean of all people – Dean, who knew how much trouble he had separating fact from fiction – would do something like this to him. He’d been made a fool of in front of all those people and now here he was, in a suburban street, crouching on the cracked, grey pavement, having a panic attack.

 

* * *

 

 

Dean had never been so angry in his life. He had been in the kitchen longer than intended, due to a freshman called Jess cornering him and then proceeding to ask him a million about his geeky younger brother. Ever the proud older sibling, Dean had taken great pride in first telling Jess what a nerd Sam was and then telling her that if she really liked Sam, she should just go for it and talk to him.

When he made it back to the living room, he could tell immediately that something was wrong. Cas, was hunched over, his shoulders tense and one of his hands was scratching his forearm so hard, Dean was sure it was about to draw blood.

He heard Victor say his name and saw Cas look at him in disbelief, before he pushed Dean out of the way and darted out of the room.

“What the fuck is going on?”, Dean asked the suddenly silent room.

No one answered until Meg spoke up. “Check your phone.”, she positively spat. Dean dug his phone out of his pocket and tapped the screen. It lit up and he saw that he – along with most people in the house – had been added to a group chat in which Gordon and Victor had told them all that they were messing with Cas by making him think that something awful had happened between him and some exchange-student and that everyone was to play along.

“You fuckers!”, Dean yells into the silence. “You absolute bags of shit, why the fuck would you think this is funny?”

Gordon gets up and puts a friendly hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Lighten up, we were just joking with your pet nerd, Dean. To be honest, I’m not even sure why you still hang out with that faggot, he’s –“ That was as far as he got, before Dean punched him in the face.

“What the fuck, dude?”, Gordon yelled.

“Shut up!”, Dean yelled back. “If any of you who were involved in this, ever come near Cas again, I will personally beat you to a pulp!” With that, he turned on his heel and stalked out of Gordon’s house.

He wishes he could say that he can’t believe Gordon and Victor would do something like that, but he honestly can’t. What really angers him though, is all the people who knew what was going on and did nothing while his Cas broke apart in front of them.

Wait, did he just think _his_ Cas? Never mind, he already knew he had a massive crush on his best friend, he supposes being this possessive was just the natural progression of it.

He reaches the end of Gordon’s street and looks around for where Cas could have gone. When he hears a sniffle to his right, he immediately follows the sound and finds Cas curled up in a ball on the pavement, his head between his knees.

 

* * *

 

 

Cas’ breath comes in short, sharp bursts and the tears he’d been struggling to contain come pouring down his face. He’s never felt so betrayed, so when he hears a noise and opens his eyes to see Dean Winchester standing in front of him, the first thing he does is stand up and slap him.

“Hey! What the fuck was that for?”, Dean asks him, holding his hand to the stinging mark Cas left on his face.

Cas immediately sinks back onto the ground, burying his face in his hands. He shudders when he feels Dean sitting down next to him.

“Cas?”, Dean asks gently. “You don’t really think I had anything to do with that, do you? I swear I had no idea, I was in the kitchen and I didn’t see that stupid fucking group chat until after you left.” He tentatively puts a hand on Cas’ back and when he doesn’t pull away, he begins to make small, calming, circular movements with his fingers.

“You really didn’t know?”, Cas asks quietly, his voice muffled as he still has his face in his hands.

“I promise I didn’t. I could never hurt you that way, sweetheart.”, Dean says and immediately ceases his rubbing, when he realises what he just said.

Cas finally lifts his face to look at Dean. “I’m sorry, Cas. I didn’t mean –“, Dean begins, but Cas shushes him, by placing a single, trembling finger to his lips and then launching forward to hug him with such force that Dean is almost knocked onto his back.

“I’m so sorry, I wasn’t there to stop them from doing that to you.”, Dean whispers into Cas’ hair, as his best friend burrows his face into his chest.

Cas looks up at him, his blue eyes are red rimmed and there are tear stains all down his face. “I’m sorry too, Dean. I shouldn’t have doubted you.”, he says.

“It’s okay, Cas. I know I would have reacted similarly.”, Dean says, lifting a hand to stroke Cas’ face. He knows he is moving further and further away from best-friend territory and into something entirely new, but he can’t bring himself to care. He stops though, when Cas gasps.

“Dean, what happened to your hand?”, he asks, aghast and Dean looks down at his bruised knuckles, before smirking.

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Let’s just say, Gordon’s face is much harder than it looks.”, he sniggers and although Cas looks shocked, he just winds his arms tighter around Dean.

“Thank you.”, he says into Dean’s shirt and when he looks back up at him with those huge, blue eyes, Dean just can’t help himself. He leans forward and kisses Cas, gently at first, but with more passion when he realises Cas is actually kissing back.

When they break apart, Cas just stares at him in shock. “You just kissed me.”, he whispers and Dean nods.

“I did.”, he swallows hard. “Did you not – Was that okay?” In answer, Cas just leans forward and kisses Dean again. When they break apart for the second time, Dean grins.

“I’m gonna go ahead and assume that was a yes.”, he says a little breathlessly and Cas just grins back.

Dean slowly gets to his feet and holds out a to Cas, who takes it and lets himself be pulled to his feet.

“What do you say, I walk you home?”, Dean says and Cas’ face falls.

“I would like that, but unfortunately I’m still a little drunk. I fear my parents might notice.”, Cas says, a little ashamed and Dean just wraps and arm around him.

“Then what do you say, we go to that diner you like so much and have some honeycomb ice-cream until you sober up?”

Cas stretches up to plant a kiss squarely on Dean’s lips, before saying: “Yes Dean. I would like that very much.”

Dean draws Cas in for another kiss and laughs when Cas suddenly stops and asks: “Wait, why were you in the kitchen for so long? Were you doing something with that girl?”

“Yeah, I was doing something with her.”, Dean smirks, immediately wiping the grin off his face, when he sees the expression on Cas’ face. “No, no babe, nothing like that. She’s a freshman with a major crush on Sammy, I spent the whole time answering her questions about him.”

“Oh.”, Cas breathes a sigh of relief. “That’s great for Sam.”

“Yeah.”, Dean says. “But that poor girl has no idea, what she’s getting herself into. I’ve lived with that moose for 15 years, she only knows him from school.”

Cas laughs and they make their way down the street together, their hands finding each other and Dean doesn’t let ago until much later that night, when he leaves Cas at his house with a sweet kiss and the promise to come and see him again tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, so basically this actually happened to me, except I was much closer to the people who did it than Cas and I didn't have a Dean to help me.
> 
> Drop a Kudos or a Comment if you liked it, or stop by my tumblr @givebackmylifecas xx


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